@Karen Hodge, I hear you!! Sometimes I think the estate agent should carry quite a bit of the blame actually. If they do their job correctly like you see in the adds on TV, they should bring these discrepancies to the attention of the sellers, stand on their morals and say if you can't get it better than this, then you'll have to find someone else to sell your home!! I know you can't make everybody "house proud" but the saying "do unto others" springs to mind. I bet if these same people bought a house not up to scratch, "a current affair" would hear about it but they don't think it wrong to simply walk out on a house that isn't being left nicely for the next family!! I have some friends that recently sold a house in Essendon, Melb and whilst the buyers were back and forth selling their own home, my friends kept watering the plants and even did things like painted out the wardrobes because of the scuff marks made over time!! They cleaned the entire two storey house from top to bottom and finished by mopping the floors as they were exiting. The buyers were so taken by the entire home, they bought it with almost all the furniture that my friends had in it!!

I love Australian things and dream of visiting one day. As a child I had a stuffed Koala with a baby. I loved that! I gave it to friends that I thought would appreciate having a toy, (they were even more poor than us) but they didn't even say thank-you or play with it. I would have happily taken my stuffed toy back! :-( I love tropical flowers and visiting the Australian exhibits at whatever zoo has them. One day I dream of diving the Great Barrier, too. Someday... And of course we almost always have Yellow Tail wine in the house ;-)

I've had different approaches in different houses. I designed front of one house so no-one could enter and had Monitored alarm. Another I had really good doors and a crim proof level film put on all windows. I didn't believe what I was told about the strength so I threw bricks and bashed one of the windows to test the film. I couldn't break the window but I did make a bit of a mess of it and had to get guys back to replace that one. I felt really secure after that. Sadly as I was bashing away I could hear passers by on the other side of the wall totally ignoring all the racket. No-one called out or checked what was happening. Gave birth to a security company owner (that was handy) so I had lots of tricky gadgets at one stage. Moved to a gated community with lots of security and a concierge. About to move to another gated community so I'll think about it when I get there.

I have an inbuilt gas heater. I don't put it on everyday, but on a really chilly day I'll put it on for a few hours in the evening. I have very occassionally had it on for most of the day!